#tech rant

[x-leather-murder-bear-x]

I personally don’t give a fuck about all of this red note/tik tok bullshit. It just shows how dependent on technology and lonely some of y’all motherfuckers are.

[alynnl]

Well. My desktop just about self-terminated when I was trying to catch up on asks. And I honestly can’t afford a brand new replacement. I’m unsure about what I should look for in a refurbished one as far as specs for regular browsing, video watching, chatting and music listening. It looks like I might have to get used to permanently being stuck with mobile browsing.

Happy freakin holidays to me.

[avkamfher]

"Consider use the phone app. . . "

Not everything needs to be a damned phone app. Let me use the website like god intended you soulless company. Let websites be fucking websites.

[adrekiy0]

lukewarm take: if microsoft hates third-party emulation and piracy so much, they should push for disc drives to come back and make their own emulator that works with xbox discs (totally not just me being salty about games i physically own being impossible to find anywhere)

[that-one-lotr-orc]

So I was on a holiday in Sweden, and on the ride back, in a bathroom stall on a camping in Danmark, something occurred to me. Danish internet is incredibly shit.

I was sitting on the edge of a lake in a nature reservation in Sweden, with maybe 20 people permanently living within 100km, and I got (a bit shotty) 4g. I could send pictures through whatsapp (it took a minute to send, but hey, middle of nowhere, what you expect?).

At the same time, I am taking a shit on a camping in Danmark, trying to read up on my Discord convos, and it just. wont. load. I’m within 20 kilometers of the center of Kopenhagen, AND I CANT GET ENOUGH INTERNET TO LOAD FUCKING DISCORD MESSAGES

Danmark, the fuck?!?

[regsagc]

The technical term is Digital Rights Management (DRM) and it is a whole family of software whose only purpose is to restrict the owner of the computer from doing useful things that would otherwise be simple.

The stated purpose is to prevent screen-recording of videos for pirating a show, and I don't know if the additional restriction of screenshots is a side-effect of the DRM method used. Maybe it's just the developer of the software wanting to earn their keep by going above and beyond.

In either case, it goes against the fundamental principle that if you own a computer, you are the one who decides what it does and what software runs on it. The video clip is right there, and actively fucking with how it is played to prevent the user from saving and screenshotting it is anti-user and anti-freedom.

hbo max blocks screenshots even when I use the snipping tool AND firefox AND ublock which is a fucking first. i will never understand streaming services blocking the ability to take screenshots thats literally free advertising for your show right there. HOW THE HELL IS SOMEBODY GONNA PIRATE YOUR SHOW THROUGH SCREENSHOTS. JACKASS

[krisrisk]

I just watched a person clean and restore a psp back into full working mode, and it got me thinking again. How come my Nintendo Switch (from 2021) has so much less power than my Smatrphone (from 2018)? I did some online-searching and people say it's because the switch uses cpu and stuff that heats less. While the phone starts off better, it drops massively after short time, because of overheating.

So. Why not make the ventilation better? Is it because of the glue? (Because today nothing is screwed anymore, only glued, so you cannot repair it yourself *angry old woman noises*)

When I got the PSP way back then, I did so because of the big screen. I was not that much of a gamer, casual at most. But all my friends and me used to watch movies or videos while on the train, and they did so on tiny ipod-screens. Watching videos on a 4x6 cm screen is NO fun, let me tell you. So when the PSP came out, I got one.

And though it was heavy and big, it was so good. I played for HOURS.

The nintendo switch does a better job because the joycons are detachable, which has a lot of consequences built-wise (although one could argue that a cable could actually be a good thing because bluetooth is overcrowded today). But what the PSP did right was heat deployment. And it had a drive! You didn't need that much storage because external storage was already a thing! You had either cards or UMD, and it was great!

Also: the "glass" (transparent plastic) buttons? Come on, they look sleek af.

I just think that if we got away from todays rectangle-obsession and started building things with a futuristic instead of a minimalistic design in mind, we could have so much more fun. It was fun playing with the PSP. Did it hurt my wrist in the long run? Yeah, probably. But that could be solved as well.

A hybrid between then and now, a hybrid between a PSP (with the design and repairability and the UMD drive and battery removal) and the Switch (detachable controllers and stand and being able to hook up to a tv) would be a dream.

Something that you carry in your backpack (because we still use those) but also put next to your tv. Something to play on and watch videos, but not messaging or making calls.

I want my things separate again. I want to have a clear cut between "i am playing" and "this device allows people to reach me". I don't need my phone to do it all. Heck my phone should only do three things; calling, messaging and websearch.

Would that mean to carry around more stuff? Yes. But it would also allow us to put up boundaries again.

We're all burnt out, and we have evidence for this. Getting rid of your phone is not an option for most people, and potentially dangerous in an emergency. Getting a second phone just for playing games and having apps sounds ridiculous because you would still need a SIMcard which comes with a phone number.

Why not separate the things again? Make room for playtime and make it recognizable as such.

People are complaining about being called out-of-office by their boss, and because our phones are our "all-in-one" device, we can't plausabily say we didn't see it - or even turn it off.

So why not get the luxury of having toys be toys instead of everything being an app on a phone?

I say it again and I'll die on that hill: if someone could make me the internal organs of a 5G phone for a Nokie3210 (which i still own!), I would use that. It contained one shitty game (which we were all obsessed with) and was used for calling an texting. No pictures, no web, no apps. An I miss that.

Unfortunately, it is not compatible with my countries mobile service system anymore, so it's bricked basically. And I don't have the knowledge or tools to design the tech needed to "upgrade" it.

This here, the PSP, is a similar issue for me. With one exception: It wouldn't need to be upgraded. I could get one and use it the way I did back then.

And honestly, I'm considering it.

[piolhyna]

I am so pissed. With my old iPad I could, get this, watch videos with my headphones and still charge it at the same time! But since the tech gurus have decided that having a separate port for headphones is too "old school", in my new tablet I have to either charge OR listen with headphones.

Sometimes innovation is worse 🙄

[elb0wn00dle]

iim trying to upload a custom ringtone to my phone why does windows 11 have to make everything so fucking hard ToT just LET ME RENAME THE FILE EXTENSION!!!! I used my work computer at my job which runs like windows 10 and it was SO EASY ToT why do these tech giants think that "simplifying" their UI and making a bunch of weird drop down menus that you have to navigate is a good idea? its so stupid

[radicalityincident]

God I hate how normalized not being in control of your own devices has become. My phone updates in the middle of the night without asking me shit or getting my consent for anything and its like "Oh hi I'm your new AI, please enjoy this forced overlay that you can't exit out of until you go through my tutorial"

"Great fuck you, I would like to uninstall you" "Oh I'm sorry you can't uninstall me! I'm a core system application and if you uninstall me your phone won't function correctly despite the fact that I did not exist yesterday and your phone worked fine" "....." "You can disable parts of my functionality but I will always be here and I will pop up notifications asking you to re-enable me unless you figure out how to disable those too! Then I will still show up in a different color at the top of your settings application telling you that you need to 'fix" a 'problem' with your phone, that problem being that I am disabled. Does that help?"

Like, you know what I can do on my desktop? "sudo pacman -Rdd linux" , this will just fucking remove the entire linux kernel. Fundamentally breaking my computer until I boot up a live disk and chroot in and reinstall it or whatever, and the computer will go "Are you sure (y/n)" or whatever and i'm like "y" and it will just go "Ok you got it boss"

But its mine, I get to do what I want with it. I control the computer, the computer does not control me. I refuse to cede control to my phone or anything else. The thing is a lot of people will joke that like "Oh I love just letting the machine tell me what to do, I don't know what I'm doing, it knows best" or whatever but the thing you have to realize is that when you say that you are abstracting away that "the phone" or whatever is not some value neutral logic driven robot like from sci-fi, it is a collection of the the capitalistic and fascistic desires of the tech oligarch fuckwits that are burning the world to the ground right now. You aren't submitting to the phone, you are submitting to Musk, Bezos, Nadella, Pichai, Cook and all those other evil bastards.

Fuck them, fuck their little AI toys, and fuck this.

[better-call-sneed]

This is cope. Lenovo fucked me as soon as I picked my home as region of purchase when i traveled to america and nullified my warranty for accidental damages even though I paid out my ass for moroccan import taxes. Lenovo's warranty terms are absolute shit and they overcharge for spare parts on Lenovo.com. Lenovo's warranties in Morocco just like all tech manufacturers are worth less than toilet paper.

I don't know if they actually do shit here customer service-wise, but let me tell you: if you aren't on the list of countries where you're considered a human being (which by sheer absolute coincidence, happen to be in europe and north america and never in africa), Ubisoft becomes far better than Lenovo.

[mtjapblogger]

Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE: First impressions of Samsung's more affordable, premium tablet.

When it comes to premium tablets, the iPad and the Surface are by far the most popular. Samsung tablets are a complicated mix of good and bad. The Galaxy Tab A tablets are okay for basics like checking email, social media, and reading ebooks. The Galaxy Tab S tablets, like the Galaxy S phones, are high-end and are good for gaming, photo and video editing, and are actually able to replace a laptop…

[adrekiy0]

mint machine's refusing to connect to wifi and the hardware clock's lost about four months of time. might pick the nuclear option and try installing arch on it if i can't get shit to work

[radhew]

As some rando with an heavy interest in AI, I really really like this take.

As amazing and cool as this technology is and regardless of how much I adore it, having generative tools of this caliber is a brand new thing with no rules or regulations on it. And the first thing that'll happen with something like that is exploitation for a quick buck. Everyone knows this, and in small cases this can be properly mitigated without too much hassle.

However, AI is going to change how we do so many things. This is NOT a small case and these conversations NEED to be had. This is really frustrating because, understandably, nobody WANTS to have this conversation as a public figure. It's a fucking dumpster fire right now, with early adopters clearly having no interest in respecting the wishes or wellbeing of the very artists that made it possible. Personally, I wouldn't like to have a calm and rational conversation with someone making a copy of my face and parading it around over theirs, either. Plus, if you're too easy on them, your followers are gonna feel like you don't have their back.

As a creator, the simplest and most effective way to deal with this is to come out and be like "Fuck AI, it's awful." Gets rid of the weird tech bros and proves your solidarity with artists. Hell, that may be even the best way to deal with it right now, I dunno. But people who are already interested in AI aren't going to be the ones listening.

That's why I have so much respect for content creators who can prove there are good uses for AI, (even if it is just silly little prompts, I think that's just as valid and frankly hilarious) while still being able to note just how dangerous it is for people's careers, livelihood, and...well, this may or may not be a little dramatic, but the growth and evolution of art itself. Not only do we need to talk about what ethical AI use is, but we also need to show people what it looks like. There's never gonna be a definitive answer, and AI in general is always gonna be a grey area every person will have a unique stance on. But creators have the opportunity to help formulate guidelines and, more importantly, hard lines that you do not cross.

For example, DougDoug recently made a super funny video where he had ChatGPT essentially try to beat the entirety of Pajama Sam 1 while speaking in-character as Sam himself, just by describing what was going on in the game to it. What stands out to me in this video is the fact that he used ElevenLabs to give this fake Sam his own voice, but he specifically went out of his way not to use voice files from the game to train the voice. Instead, he used horrific combinations of the voices of his friends, (after getting permission, of course) and then put a filter on it to give it that Humongous Entertainment audio stank. Not only did it lead to a very funny bit in the video itself, but it also showed a line: He wasn't gonna make a voice actor say lines that they didn't give nor were paid for, and considering we're just now leaving the trend of presidents playing Minecraft, I think that's such an important boundary to set.

All this to say: I hope Penny does actually do episode 3 of Sonic Destruction sometime soon. I think it would be really nice to have a big voice when it comes to derivative work outright say where she draws the line. Maybe I'm a little biased because of how much I love technology, though, and because it feels really shitty to be the bad guys here. (Which, for the record, we definitely are right now.) I definitely don't blame her if she doesn't, to be clear. Nobody wants to address the elephant in the room, especially when said elephant has a fucking turret mounted to it and is starting to look a little sickly.

But, man...we need to talk.

As you've said more Sonic Destruction is coming, do you have a line or two from ep 3 you could share that doesn't have a huge spoiler or anything tied to it?

It has not been written haha. I wanted to write it a lot sooner but truth be told I've been kinda intentionally not interacting with my usual AI channels as a small show of solidarity with the writer's strike going on, since though AI is not the biggest concern of the strike necessarily it is a talking point that is brought up and part of the fight is for regulation of AI tools in artistic industry, which is something I agree with. I do think that there is an ethical place for AI tools in creative work, Sonic Destruction is not the first example of something like that (plus it helps that kinda the whole point of SD is to giggle at how silly the idea of writing an entire script with little to no human input is anyway), but right now the technology is being pushed in a direction that is designed to replace humanity in art with efficiency, and maximize return on investment. Which is just... not the point of why we create, imo. So it's a subject I care enough about to shoot myself in the foot a little lmao.

I HAVE actually considered moving forward on the video anyway and maybe using its reach to communicate some of my stance on these ideas, but I'm not sure how tasteful it would be to do so. I defer to public opinion on that, so if you have any opinions feel free to let me know.

[random-cockroach]

[1stunseeliefaelass]

I dunno what is going on, but I'm fuming now. TUMBLR KEEPS BREAKING MY HEADER IMAGE. It is NOTHING nsfw, or weird in the slightest. I dunno what their problem apparently is, but a silhouette of Death's HEAD AND FACE is NOT nsfw, at all. Who the hell, keeps messing it up? Is this some stupid glitch that keeps screwing it up? Whatever it is, I would like some answers right about now. Cus I'm done getting screwed over by nonsense and disobedient technology. Pardon the rant, but technology breaking or being stupid is one of my most anger inducing peeves.

Update: It has been fixed now. Feel free to ignore the rant now. Admittedly I feel pretty stupid over it. Trust me.